Heisig visualization technique -- advice needed

[nerdish]

Hi,

I'm having issues with the visualization technique that's a central requirement of the Heisig study method. Students of this process are advised to close their eyes and visualize the stories constructed around the primitives. I have a problem of inadvertently dozing off within 15 minutes, after having just studied 3 characters whenever I'm envisioning the embodiment of primitives in my mind's eye. Has anyone else experienced this issue and successfully overcome it?

The only alternative I can think of which is to perform the visualization process with my eyes open just isn't effective at all. Please share your thoughts on my predicament and proffer any possible solutions. And I should state that yes, I am getting enough sleep in general:)

Thanks!

[Gharial]

Perhaps you could try drawing some doodles illustrating the stories, or copy and cut out the appropriate primitives and play around with them - 'This is a car...vroom vroom! Oh no, a giant cement mixer! KA-BOOM!' style of thing. (I'm being serious! Not sure what character that's describing though LOL). You could even squint and not fully close your eyes as you do whatever more actual visual~kinaesthetic stuff. Anything that could help keep you awake and involved in the Heisigy process.

[creamyhorror]

I have a problem of inadvertently dozing off within 15 minutes, after having just studied 3 characters whenever I'm envisioning the embodiment of primitives in my mind's eye.

You shouldn't be taking up to 15 minutes to visualise/memorise just 3 character stories, that's a tremendous overuse of time. Just imagine each character story over a few seconds, repeat the relevant keywords to yourself, and move on. Then, test your knowledge over the subsequent days and weeks - repetition is key.

I'm not a Heisig user, but 15 minutes is just excessive and probably not at all what was intended. (It's probably what's causing you to get sleepy, too. Balance the length of visualisation against the risk of losing focus and nodding off.)

Also try using memrise.com to learn characters and see if that works better for you.

[Gharial]

FWIW I'm also not a Heisig user, but if any of his stories are somewhat complex (e.g. like some of those in the Matthewses' book, or Hoenig's), I can imagine them taking at least a few minutes each to really fix in the mind. Still, as Creamyhorror says, they probably aren't meant to be flawlessly committed to memory in one sitting, and need some spaced revision.

[creamyhorror]

FWIW I'm also not a Heisig user, but if any of his stories are somewhat complex (e.g. like some of those in the Matthewses' book, or Hoenig's), I can imagine them taking at least a few minutes each to really fix in the mind.

If there's such a cognitive load for learning the most basic characters in the language, then I fear the OP will never make much progress till s/he finds a better way, or gets much better at visualisation.

Yesterday I let my cousin try memrise and he could easily remember a few characters without any visualisation save for the memrise image-animation. IMO, visualisation can probably boost mnemonic hooks, but it's not meant to be a meditative exercise - just a way to connect images with keywords in the memory. Telling yourself a funny sentence or phrase to remember a character takes only a few seconds, and only several more to imagine the scene in memory.

[Gharial]

I had my first-ever look at memrise, specifically the 1-500 characters lesson-series. The first 3 characters were 的, 一, and 是, but it zipped so quickly through the visual aid for 是 and straight into a question about one of the other two characters in the set that I doubt relative beginners to hanzi would've had time to really catch the superimposed squared B (for the upper 日 portion) or E (for the lower 疋 portion). They might also be somewhat flung into the deep end with the sudden and very brisk white + spoon ( 白 + 勹 ) = belonging (to that special club where white spoons are apparently the hallmark of membership) - I mean, white and spoon aren't items that had been previously introduced (presumably the student is expected to already be familiar with at least the radicals). I guess the repetition process would start to work though (but in a slight Manchurian Candidate or Parallax View sort of way LOL). I'll definitely check it out more at some point.

[nerdish]

Thanks all to your replies to my question. I'll certainly restrict the amount of time spent on visualization and shift some of the load to SRS flashcard work. The doodling sounds like a novel idea also which I'll give a try.

[li3wei1]

Try doing it standing up.

[lechuan]

I spend 30 seconds max trying to visualize a story. If it takes longer you might be better off making up a simpler mnemonic or using andifferent method.

If the Heisg story just isn't working for me, I fallback to McNaughton style equations:

keyword + keyword + keyword + keyword = keyword

This works suprisingly well for me on characters that have more than a few component characters, ie. 微

[nerdish]

Thanks for the additional comments. I decided to not wed myself to Heisig's stories, even at the outset, if I can't visualize it readily under a minute -- I might even begin to cut it shorter than that. I'm not too familiar with McNaughton's work but I'll check it out at the local Barnes and Noble to see if I can purloin those keywords used there if it helps with memory retention.

And standing up, I guess there's always that. I'm going to try this on my subway commutes where I hardly get a seat anyways.

[lechuan]

McNaughton's method works just fine with Heisig keywords. For some characters, I just found it easier to remember the combination of keywords than a story.

I wouldn't rely on SRS to help you 'learn' a character. You're better off spending a few minutes studying a character and making a solid equation, mnemonic, even writing it out 20 times by memory, etc, then hoping that you'll eventually get it by seeing it over and over in SRS (I'm a heavy SRS user myself).

[XiongNu]

Oh my goodness, that's pretty funny! I'm pretty sure banging the words into your head with a hammer would be more efficient than what you've been doing!